


Mothers and Daughters

by Chiomi



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Identity Reveal, Mother-Daughter Relationship, POV Alternating, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 07:03:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10381203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: Sabine noticed when Marinette started going out more and sleeping less. She’s her mother, so of course she noticed. She put it down initially to a new year and new flurry of activity, but then, with monsters roaming Paris, she grew concerned. Marinette should be spending more time at home, not less. Oh, she knows it’s overprotective, that Ladybug always makes things right in the end, but it seemed like it should be natural to try to avoid the incidents. There’s no telling what Ladybug’s limits are, and even if she could heal everything, it would still be an upsetting experience.But Marinette has always been sensible, and is growing into a young lady, so Sabine noticed, but didn’t say anything.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was fun to do, and I'm excited for guesses! Comment moderation is on.

Sabine noticed when Marinette started going out more and sleeping less. She’s her mother, so of course she noticed. She put it down initially to a new year and new flurry of activity, but then, with monsters roaming Paris, she grew concerned. Marinette should be spending more time at home, not less. Oh, she knows it’s overprotective, that Ladybug always makes things right in the end, but it seemed like it should be natural to try to avoid the incidents. There’s no telling what Ladybug’s limits are, and even if she could heal everything, it would still be an upsetting experience.

But Marinette has always been sensible, and is growing into a young lady, so Sabine noticed, but didn’t say anything.

-

Marinette doesn’t like lying to her parents, but it’s an inescapable part of being a superhero. She tries not to think about it. It’s easy enough, the not-thinking, because her time is already taken up by everything else. Homework, Alya, school, Adrien, akuma, clothes, class president duties, patrol. She hardly has time to sleep, let alone worry about the worried expression that drifts over her mother’s face when she thinks Marinette won’t notice.

She’s coming back from her hundredth ‘oh I forgot this thing I urgently need for this project that absolutely can’t wait’ errand, a little more beaten up than usual, when it seems like her mother reaches her breaking point. Her dad’s already in bed, so it’s just her mom sitting at the kitchen table, mouth a thin line. “There’s a cold pack in the freezer,” she says quietly.

“Yes, mama,” Marinette says. Her ladybugs healed the damage to the city, the magic damage to herself, but the akuma hadn’t just attacked with magic, and so Marinette had an impressive black eye. She gets out the cold pack and holds it to her face as she takes a seat across the table from her mother. The cold is soothing, though any pressure on her face is somewhat unpleasant. With enough ice, though -. Well, no, probably not. It’ll be noticeable at school.

“Will you tell me how you got it?”

Marinette drops her gaze to the table. She can’t. “No.”

Her mother takes a deep breath. “Okay. You’re grounded. No more outings except for school, not for at least two weeks.”

Marinette gasps. “That’s - you can’t do that!”

“I’m your mother, Marinette. Unless you want to explain why, exactly, it’s so crucial? I trust you, baby, but you go out at all hours, you come back all bruised, and you’re secretive all of a sudden. If you can’t be honest about what you’re doing, I think you should at least take a break from doing it.”

Marinette’s hands start to fist, but that pushes the cold pack uncomfortably against her bruised supraorbital ridge. She swallows convulsively. “Okay,” she says quietly around the lump in her throat. “Can I go to bed now?”

Sabine sighs. “Yes, sweetie.” She stands, her movement slow like she’s weighted down by disappointment. “Come here and give me a hug, first.”

Marinette hugs her fiercely, though she’s still stung by the injustice of her grounding. She goes up to her room, and Tikki floats out to talk to her, looking troubled. “If I didn’t think telling her would put you both in more danger -”

Plopping onto her chaise, Marinette hugs a pillow to herself and interrupts, “But it would. So there’s nothing to do. I should probably ask Chat if he can cover patrols.”

Tikki sighs. “Yes.”

“Spots on,” Marinette says. The light of transformation washes over her, and she grabs her yoyo without getting up from her chaise.

Chat Noir picks up on the third ring, because he always responds quickly to her when he can. It’s dark where he is, though not quite as dark as her room, lit as it is only by reflected streetlamps. His eyes gleam brightly, luminescent in the dark. “What’s up, Bugaboo?”

“I’m grounded, Kitty. Do you think you can coverl patrol for the next two weeks?”

His pupils constrict slightly, going from human-round in the darkness to more distinctly feline. “Are - will you be okay?”

She wraps her free arm around her knees. “Yeah. I just - my mom worries. I’ll still find a way to be there for akuma, but maybe we’ll get lucky about timing for the next couple weeks.”

He quirks a smile. “If anyone had that kind of luck, it’d be you. But yeah, I can cover patrol. If people are worried about you . . . anyway, yeah. Let me know when you’re ungrounded.”

“You’re the best.”

They sign off, and Marinette detransforms. Tikki flies to perch on her knee, looking worried. “You are okay, aren’t you, Marinette?”

She should be, she knows. It’s not a terrible punishment, and she knows her parents love her, and it’s a consequence of doing the most important thing she can imagine doing and keeping the people she loves safe while she does it. Still - “It’s the first time I’ve ever been grounded. My mom doesn’t trust me anymore,” she says quietly, and then she’s crying.

-

In the morning, Sabine watches Marinette leave for school paler and subdued and feels a pang of regret. But it’s important. If Marinette won’t trust her mother, she’ll at least be safe while she lies. No more black eyes.

-

Marinette had done her best with her makeup, but she knows she didn’t do a great job, so she grabs Juleka as soon as she comes in the door. “Help me,” she says, tugging her to the bathroom.

“Oh, Marinette,” Juleka says, putting her hands on either side of Marinette’s face and looking at her eye.

“I brought all the makeup I have,” Marinette says helplessly, shrugging out of her backpack.

Juleka lets go of Marinette’s face and takes off her own backpack, shaking her head. “No, your skin’s too good to have what you need.” She digs out a small kit from the front of her backpack and produces a tube and a thing of powder. “What happened, anyway?”

Marinette makes a face, which only occurs to her as a bad idea when Juleka pointedly withdraws her hand from the vicinity of her eye. “It was an accident - you know how clumsy I am. I tripped and hit my face on my chair. It’s just really embarrassing that it’s so visible.”

Juleka uses her fingertips to gently dab makeup around Marinette’s eye, and it takes a few minutes but when Juleka turns Marinette towards the mirror, the bruising is almost unnoticeable. “Try not to touch your face,” Juleka says, washing her hands. “I have setting spray I’ll get out in a minute, but I know you don’t usually wear makeup.”

“You’re my hero,” Marinette says with as much sincerity as she can pack into her voice.

Juleka smiles shyly, ducking her head, then meets Marinette’s gaze in the mirror. “I’m glad I could help.”

-

Sabine used to listen to a mostly-music station in the bakery, but now she listens to one that has news updates on the hour as well as bulletins on akuma sightings. There have been so many near her baby’s school. She’s not expecting one today, though, since they’re usually not so close together.

So the bulletin is a surprise, but Marinette should be safely ensconced in school. Sabine doesn’t pay too much attention to it, preoccupied with setting out the umbrella stand and setting out the foul-weather mat so customers won’t track water all over the floor. Luckily that involves bending over, because it means Sabine is only just out of the way when a projectile umbrella crashes through the glass.

She straightens, startled, and watches as an akuma bowls down the street howling about how no one will forget an umbrella ever again and they won’t be able to blame her if they do. Another umbrella comes hurtling through the broken window, hitting Sabine in the shoulder. She gasps and presses her hand to where the umbrella hit; her hand comes away bloody.

Oh, no, the akuma’s headed towards the school, and this is more than ice or inconvenience. Sabine presses her lips together and her hand to her shoulder and runs out into the street, because she can’t bear the idea of yet another akuma going to her daughter’s school.

Ladybug swings into the path of the akuma almost as soon as Sabine is on the street, but then makes a sharp detour, stumbling on the pavement in her hurry to get to Sabine. “Ma - Madame Cheng! You’re hurt! You have to get out of the street.”

She sounds much more panicked than she usually does in the video footage, and the whites show all the way around her irises as she comes up to Sabine, hands hovering over her injured shoulder as she tries to hustle Sabine off the street without hurting her. This is the closest Sabine has ever been to Ladybug, and the proximity makes a difference. She lets Ladybug swoop her back into the bakery and then sits down behind the counter to hyperventilate and cry.

The ladybugs that swirl through a few minutes later, repairing the glass and Sabine’s shoulder, can’t fix Sabine’s shattered composure, and she turns the bakery over to Tom as soon as she can.

-

Marinette’s shaken when she gets back to school, but skates into the classroom right before Alya. Mme. Bustier is just putting away her phone, and clears her throat. “Well, as it appears we do not have cause to evacuate, it’s time to resume class. Take your seats.”

Gratefully, Marinette does, though she doesn’t pay all that much attention to her afternoon classes. What had her mom been thinking? Had she been healed properly? When class ends, Alya invites her over to hang out. “Sorry, I can’t. I’m grounded for the next two weeks.”

In front of her, Adrien noisily drops everything he’d been packing into his bag. He turns around, smiling his photo-ready smile. “Marinette, would you be able to stay and talk for a few minutes before you go home?”

She shoots a look at Alya, who grins at her. “Um! Sure. Did you want to talk here, or -”

“The courtyard,” he says in a rush.

Alya drags Nino away at a breakneck pace, leaving Adrien and Marinette almost isolated in the tide of students flowing out of the school. In the courtyard, Adrien takes her hand and tugs her out of the flow of students. It’s still drizzling, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he leads her to an unoccupied corner. There’s a strange energy vibrating from him, an entirely different wavelength than the nervousness Marinette typically feels around him. He stares intently into her face. “Why are you grounded?”

She doesn’t know why he’s so worked up about it, and shakes her head. “It’s just a misunderstanding. My mom worries.”

“Oh,” he says softly, in a wondering tone Marinette’s statement doesn’t warrant. He reaches up carefully until his hand is hovering an inch away from her face, the heat palpable even through the cold rain. “Can I - ?”

He doesn’t complete the question, just sets his thumb very carefully under her eye and swipes it gently back towards her temple. Marinette feels her eyes widen - even if the earlier fight and the rain hadn’t washed away Juleka’s makeup job, Adrien’s touch will. His gaze flickers over what must be revealed of her black eye, and she winces. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

“No, I just - um.” Marinette doesn’t know what to say. She hadn’t wanted him to see it, because she doesn’t want him to think she’s that unbearably clumsy. But he’s not looking at her like she’s clumsy, he’s looking at her like she’s the most beautiful girl in the world, and Marinette has no words to respond to that.

“You’re always so brave, my Lady,” he says, voice achingly tender.

The words go through her like lightning, like a shock flowing from earth to sky and back again and fit to stop her heart. His eyes have always been gorgeously green, but she searches them now and finds to her surprise that they’re the  _ right _ green. “Chat,” she murmurs, and leans up to kiss him.

Both their lips are rain-wet, and it’s over almost before it starts, but their first kiss still feels like its own self-contained miracle. Adrien -  _ her _ Adrien, her Chat - presses his forehead to hers. “When you’re not grounded anymore, will you go on a date with me?”

“Yes,” she says.

-

Sabine hears Marinette humming as she comes up the stairs, and is glad her baby isn’t hurt, is happy. When she comes through the kitchen, Sabine says, “Sit down.”

Marinette visibly deflates, and Sabine feels rather like a monster. “Yes, mama,” she says, and sets her backpack down before she sits. “I’m only a few minutes late.”

Sabine shakes her head. “This isn’t about that. Why didn’t you tell me you’re Ladybug?”

Marinette blanches. “I -”

Sabine shakes her head again, more firmly. “Please don’t deny it. I recognized you in the street.”

Marinette looks down at her hands. “Secret identities protect the ones you love.”

Sabine sighs, and reaches out to squeeze Marinette’s hand. “We’re your parents, Marinette. We’re supposed to protect you.”

Marinette looks up, mutiny in her eyes, and Sabine waves her to silence. “Yes, yes, you’re the one with superpowers. But you can let us be there for you, let us patch up your hurts.”

“Will you tell Papa?” Marinette asks in a small voice.

Sabine pauses for a moment, wanting to phrase this right. “I don’t like keeping secrets from your father, but this is your secret, so I’ll let you decide when to tell him, as long as it’s soon.”

Marinette nods, and Sabine thinks for a moment that the conversation is over, but then Marinette asks hopefully, “Am I still grounded?”

Smiling wryly, Sabine says, “I guess it wouldn’t really be fair to Paris to do so.”

Marinette pops out of her seat, grinning, and throws her arms around Sabine. “Thank you! I need to go text Adrien so he can plan our date!”

Marinette hums as she takes her backpack and goes up to her room, leaving Sabine in shock. Marinette doesn’t keep her in the loop on anything anymore!

 


End file.
